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NEW YORK: Brittney Riffel was seven months pregnant when her husband’s Boeing 737 MAX crashed into a field in Ethiopia. Now, the imminent return of the plane to the skies worries him.
“There are still many problems to solve before I can fly again,” Riffel told AFP earlier this week. “I feel like they’re taking shortcuts again.”
Riffel, who also lost his brother-in-law in the accident, is among 140 relatives of the victims of the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines flight now suing Boeing for the calamity, the second of two accidents that together killed 346 people.
More than a year and a half after the MAX was grounded, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorized the service on Wednesday (November 18) after requiring a series of updates, including a flight management system that brought down both. aircraft after being activated incorrectly. .
READ: US lifts Boeing 737 MAX flight ban after crash probes, tough obstacles remain
The FAA’s move paves the way for airlines to resume service on the plane in late December. Aviation experts say that the MAX can eventually become a fixture in airline fleets again if it develops a reputation for safe and reliable service.
But the plane will face skepticism from the start, a challenge heightened by the presence of the victims’ families who plan to keep talking as they await their day in court with Boeing.
Riffel said she feels “blessed with family and friends” who have supported her and her and her daughter since the tragedy, but “nothing can cure the fact that her loved one died due to corporate greed, money, politics and power, “he said. .
She plans to keep talking.
“Not only are we grieving family members, but we are concerned as members of the flying public,” Riffel said. “We care that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
REMOVING THE CRITICISM
The Ethiopian Airlines crash came less than five months after a 737 MAX flying for Lion Air crashed in Indonesia. In both cases, an anti-lock system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) repeatedly pointed the planes down, preventing the pilots from regaining control of the planes.
Subsequent reviews and Congressional investigations have raised pointed questions as to why Boeing and the FAA did not ground the plane after the Lion Air crash.
Debris recovered from the ill-fated Lion Air Flight JT 610 shown in October 2018 shortly after its accident. (Photo: AFP / Adek Berry)
There have been revelations about employees within Boeing complaining of a lax approach to safety and damning internal messages among Boeing employees about misleading regulators, including a 2017 letter saying the MAX was “designed by clowns who are themselves supervised by monkeys. “
A 239-page Congressional report released in September summed up the calamities as “the horrific culmination of a series of flawed technical assumptions by Boeing engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing management, and grossly insufficient oversight by Boeing. the FAA. “
ENOUGH TRANSPARENCY?
In authorizing the MAX, the FAA said it followed a thorough process to examine the plane prior to its recertification, which included a test flight by Administrator Stephen Dickson.
In August, the agency released a 91-page technical review document outlining its rationale for the proposed airworthiness statement.
Boeing has also emphasized its groundwork to meet regulatory demands, conducting around 1,400 test flights as part of a process that includes renewed pilot training and system upgrades to ensure the safe return of the aircraft.
READ: Losing more 737 MAX orders, Boeing contemplates return of plane to US, but tariffs from Europe looming
But critics complain that the process remains hidden.
The nonprofit group FlyersRights is suing the FAA for the release of documents on recertification “so that independent experts and the public can review the basis on which the FAA intends to disassemble the aircraft,” the group says. on their website.
Attorneys representing the victims in the Boeing litigation say the aviation giant has also refused to share key documents about what happened in the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Boeing said they cannot release such information because Ethiopian authorities are still investigating the accident.
Hiral Vaidya, who lost several members of his family in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, struggled to hold back tears at a press conference in Chicago in April 2019 in which he announced a lawsuit against Boeing. (Photo: AFP / Scott Olson)
“Boeing has been slow to produce relevant materials, documents that will help family members understand why their loved ones died,” said Chicago attorney Bob Clifford, the lead attorney in the case.
Clifford hopes the litigation will play out for at least a couple more years. Some families are likely to settle down, but others want to take on Boeing.
“Each person has different goals,” Clifford said. “You can be sure there will be some families who will insist that Boeing admit its negligence and fault or go to trial.”
Riffel is among those who plan to keep fighting.
“I don’t care about money,” he said. “I want justice.”
